(hi folks, this is post of Chris's message about of a new playable demo of his iPhone game "Mole". Be sure to check it out and give any feedback you have either on here or via his website at http://www.designerwatts.com !! - Souri)
Chris Watts
I’m proud to announce that we got a fully playable prototype demo for our in-development iPhone game “Mole” uploaded to the Muse indie game competition.
The game can be found here: http://musegames.com/game/submittedGames.do?order=votes scroll down to find the game titled “Mole”
If you find you can’t play the game. You’ll just need to download this browser plug-in: http://unity3d.com/unity-web-player-2.x.html
What we have here is a very, very early demo of the currently in-development iPhone game we’re working on.
As it stands at the moment it’s a big gem-mining sandbox. You can dig all the way down to the bottom of the map and back up again to try and get the highest score and rank. We focused our efforts on making a demo that demonstrates the visual style, player control and gameplay of what Mole has to offer.
This is somewhat what Moles endgame will be like when the player has fully upgraded mining tools.
The final version of the game will have a storyline, mining tool upgrades, an overall objective to reach, achievements to unlock and a few leader board made levels.
I hope you guys enjoy the demo we’ve worked hard to get out to you all. If you have any feedback please contact me at designerwatts@hotmail.com
Thank you
Project Mole
Made with Unity
Designer and Artist – Chris Watts
Additional design and Programming – Ben Britten
Nice little game :)
Hey, nice little game you got there :).. I keep getting E's and D's though >:(
Do you have to return to the surface before oxygen reaches o%? I can keep going until oxygen runs out, and then the little fella just zooms up to the surface all by himself.
Hi Souri. Thanks for your
Hi Souri. Thanks for your feedback.
Indeed you need to reach the surface before your oxygen reaches 0%. Mark the mole with rapidly ascend in a mad struggle to find some air to breathe.
Usually heading upwards around the 50%-30% mark gets you back unto the surface. Also remember to leave a few air bubbles as you descend for the trip back up.
Cool game but do you realise
Cool game but do you realise there is one exactly like it already on the iPhone? Its called I Dig It and as far as i can tell the two are exact copies of each other (even the menu looks similar haha).
You are right that there is a
You are right that there is a iPhone game called iDig. I own and have played it for many hours. And it's a well polished iPhone title and I'm aiming that we can bring mole upto a level of quality that iDig examples.
There are however differences between the two games that make the experiences of these games unique.
In a campaign of iDig you have one excavation site and only one. The tunnel networks that you dig stay with you throughout the entire game. You dig quite slow and can only dig in three directions. Left, down and right.
iDig is a game about creating effective tunnelling systems and managing the control of your digging machine as it can also take damage for poor manoeuvring.
Mole differentiates itself by aiming to take on a more fast, arcade style of play. Levels have a start and end. And every time you start a new level you start a brand new dig site. In Mole you dig in all directions and you can extend your trip down below by gathering air bubbles. In iDig the only way to extend your time below was to by fuel and you could only have one refill at a time. Also the setting and art style are miles apart.
They are both mining games. But there intended gameplay experience is quite different.
That sounds cool, i didn't
That sounds cool, i didn't mean my previous post to come across that bad, i was just wondering if you were aware, which you are! For what its worth i think the iphone market is big enough to fit two or more games of similar nature (see the 10 million tower defense games as an example) and your game seems like it has a solid direction. If you don't rush it and polish it up and market it well it could do really well for you. Good luck with it!
Cheers mate. Thank you for
Cheers mate. Thank you for your encouragement. :)
Winner!
Oh yeah got an A. Very cool Chris, after getting an E on my first go I found myself wanting to reach for that A. Can't wait to see what Tower City turns out like mate.
Seems already a fair way into
Seems already a fair way into development, how does Unity fair with developing for the iphone? Is it worth the investment in the iphone package and has it sped up/eased development?
Cheers
Unity, like other small
Unity, like other small engine and middle ware solutions provides you with the tools to prototype and develop games quite fast. The prototype you see there has on a programming side about 2 work weeks of time put into it to get it that far.
Art and design are another matter. It took me 3 weeks to write up a design doc, asset listing and production plan for the game and the demo has about 2 weeks of art love put into it.
I've found unity to be a good solution if your game isn't trying to brake any large technical barriers. Keep in mind that you don't have access to the engine source code so while you're given some very elegent tools and engine features you cannot add your own engine code. It's a limitation you need to embrace. :)
For the iPhone an engine like Unity would be a great long term investment. You'd make your value for money back on it after releasing 2-3 modest iPhone games. You'll need to buy the pro version to turn off unneeded engine features if you want any hope of keeping your game under that 10meg phone network download limitation.
If your looking into XBOX live development. I would suggest you trial the Torque engine.