While a giant portion of the game developer crowd was in San Francisco for a week at GDC, I made a new game.  As you might expect, it’s not a Mass Effect 3 type of effort…but it’s still a fun game and it’s out this Saturday on the iOS App Store.  I love making games and I love a challenge, so the project was part out of pure love of the “sport.”  A big part of the drive for making this game was that I’ve always wanted to do a lightning-fast project.  I’ve called this “rapid development.”  Others have called it “rabid development.”  You decide.

Invasion Strike is a top-down 2.5D space/sci-fi shooter.  You pilot a super-advanced space ship that handles everything for you except for steering left and right.  You can grab power ups for 5 different weapon types and shields.  There are 8 different types of enemies each with their own specific logic.  Controls are super simple – just tilt left & right while your ship is set on auto-fire.  Blow up all the enemies you can before they kill you.  It supports iCade & iControlPad Bluetooth controllers, iCloud syncing of high scores, and Game Center leaderboards.

Truth be told, the title of this post is a little misleading.  I didn’t make Invasion Strike in a weekend.  I did, however, make it in just under 30 hours of work.  The bulk of the game was done in the first 20 hours.  The last 10 were spent polishing, making a sound FX pack for the game (that I plan on selling on the Unity Asset Store), and recording background music.  My schedule with two newborn twins doesn’t really jive with sitting in front of the computer for multiple days without any breaks.  I did prove to myself, however, that it’s definitely possible to kick a good looking game out the door in a (long) weekend’s worth of work.  Before the twins arrived, it was fairly common for me to get in about 24 hours work over a weekend.  That’s 4 more hours than it took to get the polishing stage – easy!

To make a game happen over a weekend, you have to streamline quite a few things.  For me, I relied on my background experience, lots of powerful tools, and a laser-focused scope.

Experience

I don’t want to turn this into a resume or brag session, but here I go anyway.  Sorry.

I’ve been programming for about 30 years.  There’s no way that didn’t help.  I built Invasion Strike using the Unity 3D Game Engine.  I’ve been using Unity for about a year.  During that time, I’ve made two “real” games, Smoking Hot (still getting polished) and Rush City (out now for iOS!).  I’ve also made about 15 game prototypes using Unity.  When using Unity, I pretty much don’t have to reference the documentation to pound out code.  All that helps.  Lots.  Don’t get discouraged (yet).

Tools

The tools I used to make Invasion Strike were a giant help in the project’s success.  Getting the right things in your tool belt will save tons of time.  Many of these tools are available for $20-$30.  For me, it’s a no-brainer to plop down $30 for a purpose-built tool that makes a specific task in my game development much easier, faster, and more polished.  If you’re ever spending time trying to decide to buy a tool, the answer is almost always “yes.”  I ask around on Twitter what people use for different things.  Whatever your favorite way to get outside steering, some recommendations from those who’ve gone before (and spent tons of time learning the hard way) are golden.

If you add up the cost of all these tools, it’s not a trivial amount of money.  This post is about maximizing use of your time though.  Time is money, right?  It was worth it for me to own all of these tools for all the future projects I’ll use them on.

Moleskine and a white board

Before I start writing code, I always brainstorm ideas and draft out what a project will be.  That’s not to say that I don’t figure things out or change things as a project evolves, but spending an hour or so to build a solid starting point will save loads of time later into the project.

I’m a big fan of Moleskine notebooks.  I’m also a big fan of white boards.  I almost always have my 5″x8″ Moleskine notebook with me.  I actually prefer a notebook to a white board – blasphemy, I know.  For me, it lets me look back over the life of a project and cross reference problems I solved on other projects.  I’ve also found that by having that little notebook with me, I can sneak in 30 minutes of work while I’m waiting to get my oil changed or other down time.

I do enjoy a good white board, but I usually use them for big picture brainstorming or sketching out a specific idea.  If I’m working with a team on something, throwing ideas on a white board can be extremely valuable and productive.  There are limits to everything though.

Unity

Like I mentioned before, I built Invasion Strike in Unity.  It’s really an amazing game engine.  I find that Unity lets me concentrate on making games instead of worrying about the background tech that enables those games.  It’s not without cost though.  The first cost hit is the actual monetary cost.  If you want the full Pro version of Unity with the iPhone add on, you’re staring $3,000 in the face.  Some developers are required to buy the Pro version because of their income stream (that’s a condition in the license agreement).  Some developers want the Pro version for the extra features (like smaller & faster executable size, better texture control, custom splash screens, etc.).  The vast majority of developers, however, can use the basic version of Unity – especially if you’re just taking it for a test drive.

For learning Unity, their tutorials helped a lot.  The Tornado Twin’s YouTube channel has some great video tutorials.  The Scripting Reference in the Unity Help menu is awesome.

Unity add ons

One of the great things about Unity is how easily extendable it is.  There are quite a few people who have built successful businesses around add ons for Unity.  If you find good ones, these add ons can shed days (or even months) worth of work for very little cost.  For Invasion Strike, these are the Unity add ons I used:

• Prime31 – iCloud, iCade, Game Center.  Prime31′s plugins concentrate on interfacing Unity with the specific device/computer you’re targeting. They cut TONS of time off development.  They’re all fairly cheap.  Get every one that involves a device-specific system that you’re using.
• AnBSoft EZ GUI & Sprite Manager 2.  EZ GUI is a great tool for menus, buttons, and GUI things that (may or may not) slide around the screen.  It can also let the user interact with menus – like moving the entire menu around the screen. You can use it to create in-game 3d buttons or switches like a handle that operates a door.  If you create a bunch of GUI elements, it will create a texture atlas automatically for you.  It’s much nicer than Unity’s GUI system.  There are others like it, but I’ve only tried EZ GUI. Works like a champ.  Sprite Manager 2 lets you do things like having animated sprites.  I use them for the pre-rendered explosions in Invasion Strike.  Creating the explosions involved dragging the animated explosion files into a “PackedSprite” GameObject and hitting go. Neither of these plugins are cheap, but I can’t imagine getting through Invasion Strike in 30 hours without them (or getting through Rush City in 350 hours, for that matter).

Pre-made 3D models

As a 3D modeller, I’m an amateur at best.  There are lots of places online where you can buy pre-made 3d low-poly models that will work great with Unity.  The down side the using pre-made models instead of custom models is that someone else might have the same stuff in their game.  One easy way to cut down on people noticing is to create custom textures for your game.  Some models are free and others (such as animated characters) cost several hundred dollars.  The total cost for the models in Invasion Strike was under $400.  The Unity Asset Store is a great place to start your search for 3d models & Unity-specific plugins (just hit Cmd 9 while in Unity).

Cheetah3d

One way to make sure those pre-made 3d models stand out from their “stock” appearances is to do some simple modelling tweaks.  For example, the player ship I chose for Invasion Strike looked nice, but on the small screen it just wasn’t beefy enough.  The body of the ship was pretty thin, so I wanted to tweak it.  That’s where Cheetah3d came in.  Cheetah3d is an easy to use 3d editor.  The work I wanted to do on the models was simple.  Cheetah is way more powerful than anything I use it for – it can do 3d modelling stuff, including UV wrapping, skeletons, textures, animations, and more.  For the tweaks in the models I did, I just grabbed some vertices and pulled them to make the core of the model bigger.  That simple tweak gave the models a different look and took almost no time.  Cheetah3d’s on sale for $99 right now.

TimelineFX

I gushed on Twitter about this about a month ago.  TimelineFX lets you create pre-rendered animated particle effects and output them to either an atlas or individual files.  If you’ve edited any type of particle effects before, it’s pretty easy to adjust their pre-made examples to exactly what you’re looking for.  Sprite Manager 2 can easily turn these into awesome looking effects for your game.  With the current exchange rate, TimelineFX costs about $47.

One thing to consider when going this route, however, is that the pre-rendered particle effects you’d generate with a tool like TimelineFX are 2d sprites.  In many cases – even in full 3d games – 2d sprites will work fine if you just turn the sprite to face the camera (or pretty close to the camera).  But, you need to consider the overall design of your game.

Glyph Designer

Creating pre-rendered fancy fonts can be a painful process.  Glyph Designer is the best text creation tool I’ve found.  You can use any font that’s in your system (check the font’s license though), add outlines, gradients, and shadows.  It’s easy to adjust padding and output to an atlas.  It’s perfect.  It’s only $30.  Get it.

Filter Forge

Filter Forge is a very powerful tool for making textures that work great in 3d games.  It works as either a standalone program or as a Photoshop filter.  I prefer to use it as the standalone version, but it works great either way.  I used Filter Forge for the seamless tiling space background in Invasion Strike.  That background took about 5 minutes to make and I think it looks great.  Filter Forge always seems to be on some sort of sale (“ending soon!”).  I think I bought the pro version for something like 40 or 50% off a while back.  If it’s not on sale now, chances are it will be soon.

Photoshop

There are lots of photo editing alternatives out there and everyone knows that Photoshop isn’t cheap.  If you work with an artist though, that artist is going to send you a file that Photoshop can read.  If you’re braving it alone, it’s an outstanding tool that’ll likely meet all your graphic needs.  One of the coolest features of Photoshop Extended is the ability to paint textures directly on a 3d model.  It works great if you want to repaint models for use in Unity.  If you’re extra brave (and have a fat wallet), adding Illustrator to the mix will fill any image creation or editing whim you have.  Adobe’s “Suites” are worth looking at if you need more than one or two of their tools.

Korg M50, Logic Pro & M-Audio MobilePre

The sound effects and music in Invasion Strike were created on my Korg M50 Synth/Workstation.  I recorded them onto my MacBook Air using Logic Pro software interfaced through an M-Audio MobilePre USB audio interface.  To save money, all of the sound effects could have been created using the built in synths in Logic Pro.  For me, using the M50 was much quicker though.  The MobilePre does a great job of recording audio & interfacing the keyboard with Logic Pro.

The music would have been much slower to create using Logic Pro (for me).  It’s definitely a powerful program – I just haven’t learned it that well yet.  If you don’t want or need the extra power of something like an M50, you can do everything with a simple MIDI keyboard interfaced with Logic Pro.  Something like the Korg microKey would work great – and you can even connect it to your iPad using something like the Korg iMS-20 synth app.

For the music in Invasion Strike, I used a spacey lead synth sound and one of the built-in drum tracks.  I used a popular pop music chord progression and played around for about an hour to create the 3 minute track.  For now, one track is enough – I can always add more later.

Your old code

If you build all your code so that it’s (fairly) transferable between projects, you can save yourself a bunch of time by reusing it.  Even if you can’t reuse your old code, you may have written something that’s close to what you’re trying to do.  Scan that old code (you did comment it well, right?) and see what your old self figured out.

Scope

To get something out the door in rapid/rabid fashion, you have to limit the size of the project.  Like I mentioned before, there’s no way to make something like Mass Effect 3 (or Descent 3!) in a weekend.  The mobile space is a great place for small casual games.  It’s worth noting, however, that throwing junk up for sale won’t earn you any revenue or brand loyalty.  Make sure your game is fun.  It should be something that you’d want to play.

Remember that Moleskine notebook & white board I talked about earlier?  Those are my main tools for brainstorming and recording the scope of the project.  For Invasion Strike, I decided that 5 weapon types (all variations of the same bullet) and shields were enough for power ups.  I also drew the line at 8 enemy types.  Extra features like iCade were chosen carefully for value added with time carefully considered.  I chose to not make Invasion Strike a universal app, but coded it such that it’d be easy to change that in a future update.

So, I decided what I wanted Invasion Strike to be and wrote down a description of each feature.  I organized things in importance order and started marching down the list one thing at a time.  Setting those goals is a great way to keep on track and keep focused while you’re developing your new game.

Do it!

OK.  This was an overview of how I made Invasion Strike in 30 hours.  Brainstorm on the tools and ideas here.  Then, set off on your own rapid development project.  Make it good enough that you’d want it as an app listed alongside your other apps.  Make it simple enough that you can finish it in whatever time frame you set as your goal.  Make decisions during the development to keep your project on track.  Do you really need all 482 of those Game Center achievements?  Probably not.

Figure out what works for you.  Take a look at what takes the most time.  What’s the least productive thing you do?  What are the areas where you could shave hours/days/months off your development time if you had an extra tool to help you?  Do you really need to have Twitter and Facebook open all day?  Also figure out what works really well for you.  Why does that work well?  Can you apply some of your techniques in that area to other parts of your development cycle?  Optimize your workflow.

That’s it. If you have a rapid project of your own or anything else to share, post a link in the comments.  Go make great games!

Invasion Strike is available now for the iPhone!  Get it here!

Our newest game Rush City is now waiting for review at Apple.  Rush City is a 3d-rendered endless runner set in a dark & stormy city. You are the last survivor of your alien race…hunted by evil humans and their helicopters. Use the simple one touch controls to jump from building to building, duck under & jump over helicopters, bounce over other obstacles and collect piles of stars. It’s loaded with 30 challenging achievements grouped in sets of 3…you gain jump, acceleration and score buffs for completing each set. It’s integrated with iCade, iControlPad, iCloud achievement syncing, Game Center leaderboards & achievements, in-game high score indicators to see your friends’ scores as you pass them – and it’s a universal app!

Here’s a sneak peak trailer:

Expect it to hit the App Store later this month!

Since 2004, many have shared the thought “Get well, Steve.“  Now we are all pained to say goodbye.

Godspeed, Steve.

Here are a few screenshots of different world texturing in one of our test levels.

Smoking Hot is a futuristic fast paced racing game where you pit your skill against challenging levels from around the universe!  Players can pilot their choice of space ship and unlock even more ships and levels as their skill improves.  In addition to the built-in levels, players will be able to share levels they design and download levels from other players online.  With Game Center and OpenFeint leaderboards and achievements, players can compare their skills against their friends.

Smoking Hot is built on the backbone of the latest Unity3d version 3.4 for an amazing 3d racing experience.  Smoking Hot will launch on iOS.  The lead developer is Bryan Duke.  Art for Smoking Hot is by Liem Nguyen from Pixel Reborn.  Sound effects are by Tapio Liukkonen from Kaamos Sound.  The music score is by Mark Cook from Herd of Instinct.

We previewed Smoking Hot to a select few people at Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference in June 2011 and received glowing feedback.  We’re still adding a few more awesome features to the game.  Expect more details soon!

Air Hockey is currently the top-ranked paid air hockey type game in the iOS App Store on both the iPhone and the iPad.  Our free & paid iOS versions have been downloaded by millions of people.  Air Hockey’s been a staple in the App Store since the beginning and topped the charts as the #1 paid game.  Apple featured the iOS version numerous times in the App Store and in Apple Stores worldwide listed in “Our Favorite Games.”  Macworld said “Air Hockey from Acceleroto is the best.”  Patrick Norton of Revision 3 called it “my favorite application…it is so awesome.”

We took our well known gameplay graphics from the iOS version and make them look great on your Mac.  This isn’t just a quick port from iOS – everything was custom tailored for an outstanding experience on your Mac.  From the AI to the size of the pucks & table, everything was molded for Mac mega-awesomeness.

You can pick Quick Play from the freshly-designed menu, then choose your difficulty & number of pucks to play a single game. To try your hand at full Air Hockey domination, select Tournament to start at 1 Puck Kiddie mode & work your way up all the way to 2 Puck INSANE!  In each mode, Air Hockey saves your best winning time and compares each game to your best.

You can select from four different themes.  The default theme is the popular blue table from the iOS version of Air Hockey, but pick whatever theme floats your boat.  Pucks & mallets are automatically matched to each table.

Updates are already in work to add new features like full-screen mode.  If Apple ever adds Game Center to the Mac, Air Hockey will get that upgrade too.

Check out the in-depth Air Hockey review by 9 To 5 Mac – including 5 minutes of game video.

Air Hockey will be available from the Mac App Store on launch day, January 6, 2010.  Hit it!

Christmas Air Hockey has full Retina Display support for your shiny new iPhone 4 or 4th generation iPod touch.  For older devices, graphics sized for your device ensure buttery smooth game play.

Choose between 5 table themes – all Christmas & holiday themed!  Pick a table with Christmas lights, wreaths and ornaments, or just a simple snowfield or ribbon background.  In every theme you’ll see star trail special effects on your fast-flying pucks – great to show off how great your iPhone or iPod’s looks and how fast you can win!

Check out some screenshots below and grab the game while it’s on sale for just $0.99!

Game Center is Apple’s latest major addition to the iPhone & iPod touch.  If you’re familiar with OpenFeint or Plus+, those are somewhat similar to what Game Center brings to iOS.  It’s leaderboards and achievements wrapped around a social network of your best online friends and millions of other gamers.  For now, Game Center is available on iOS4.1 iPhone and iPod touch devices.  Game Center will come to the iPad in iOS4.2 this November.

Don’t worry, your hard-earned OpenFeint high scores and achievements are still there.  In the latest version of OpenFeint, version 2.7.1, you’ll see Game Center high scores sit right in there with your OpenFeint scores.  The game even automatically submits your previous accomplishments to Game Center!

When the Air Hockey update hits the streets, just sign in to Game Center using the standard Apple “Sign In” pop up and you’ll be on your way to OpenFeint and Game Center world domination.  Air Hockey version 1.11 with Game Center will be out soon!

If you don’t have it, go grab Air Hockey now!

To redeem a code, open iTunes on your computer, click “iTunes Store” on the left, then click “Redeem” on the right.  If you’re on your iPhone or iPod touch, open the App Store, go to “Featured,” then scroll to the bottom & select “Redeem.”

Doodle Hockey promo codes:
EEL6KWHFTL4N
3AEWXHWWWHFE
EXMA9F6X9H6J
6KKLKFTWE3K3
73LHPW36AFAP

Happy Labor Day!  Share with your friends & have fun!

If you look at the current 2010 Mac Pro specs, it says that with either one ATI 5770 or one ATI 5870 the Mac Pro can drive three monitors.  In a caveat at the bottom of the page, it says:

2. Connecting more than three displays requires installation of two ATI Radeon HD 5770 graphics cards.

This led me (and many others) to believe that connecting three displays was as simple as plugging them in.  The Mac Pro’s 5870 can display on three monitors, but that’s not all the story.  After spending several days working on this and an hour on the phone with two levels of tech support at AppleCare, I’ve learned the whole story (well, most of it).

If you read ATI’s specs on the 5870, it says (in a caveat at the bottom of the page):

Driver version 8.66 (Catalyst 9.10) or above is required to support ATI Eyefinity technology and to enable a third display you require one panel with a DisplayPort connector

Sure, Macs don’t use the PC Catalyst drivers, but this seemed like the 5870 should be able to display on three monitors without much headache.

After my Mac Pro was shipped, Apple posted a support article to their website that talked about supported display configurations of the new Mac Pro video cards.  This was the first indication from Apple that if you used DVI monitors, you were in for a few surprises.  In that article it states that to connect three monitors with DVI, you had to use two of Apple’s Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI Adapters (part number MB571Z/A).  Given the ATI spec on the 5870, it doesn’t make sense to me when you need two of these.  The folks at AppleCare verified this though.  You need two of them.  I asked AppleCare why this appears to differ from the ATI spec on the 5870 and they didn’t have an answer.

A new Apple Support article just showed up that further details the issues with three displays on the new Mac Pros.  In that article, Apple states that if you connect three monitors one of them “may turn black” or “no longer appear in the Graphics tab of System Profiler.”

… one of the following issues may occur:

• When using a DVI connection, a Mini DisplayPort, and an HDMI connection, the display connected via DVI may turn black.
• When using a DVI connection and two HDMI displays, the display connected via DVI may turn black.
• When using a DVI connection and a HDMI connection, adding an additional HDMI connection or a Mini DisplayPort connection may cause the initially-connected HDMI device to no longer appear in the Graphics tab of System Profiler.

The article goes on to say:

Resolution

When three displays are in use with Mac Pro (Mid 2010), only one DVI or HDMI device should be used.  Note: The Mini DisplayPort to DVI Adapter (different from the Apple Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI adapter) is considered a DVI device.

So, now we know.  It’s easy to connect three DVI monitors to your shiny new 2010 Mac Pro, but it’ll cost you.  The solution is to use two of the $99 Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI connectors.  There are several frustrating things with this however.  First, $200 is a (how shall I say this…) “silly” amount to spend on adapters when that’s roughly what an entire 5770 video card costs.  Because the 5870 uses both of the Mac Pro’s PCIe power adapters, you can’t add a 5770 to a system with an existing 5870.  When I asked AppleCare about adding a 5770, they told me it wasn’t a supported configuration and my system was already “maxed out.”  There may be a way to get power from a non-used SATA power connector to drive another graphics card, but that’s not a supported configuration by Apple.

The second frustrating thing is that Apple isn’t currently upfront about these limitations in their sales information. The only caveat about monitors on their sales pages tells you to buy the two 5770 option if you want more than three monitors.  Two 5770s and one 5870 are in the same order of magnitude in speed.  If you want to drive three (or four) non-DisplayPort monitors, the best way to spend your money is on two 5770s instead of a 5870 with a bunch of $99 adapters.

I sent Apple a request to update their sales information to be more clear.  It’d be much better customer relations if they were upfront about which Mac Pro configurations supported each display configuration.  If you’ve been bit by this, you should do the same.  You can leave feedback to Apple here: http://apple.com/feedback

In the grand scheme of things, this isn’t the end of the world.  I bought the new Mac Pro mostly for the power.  In my “real world” benchmark tests, the new 2010 8-core 2.4GHz Mac Pro is roughly 5 times as fast as my 2008 iMac at compiling my iPhone games Air Hockey and Doodle Hockey.  It’s loads faster at After Effects renders.  On OpenCL tasks that can jump on the GPU, the new Mac Pro with a 5870 should really shine.  It crushes my old computer in everything it does.  A new $4000 computer better crush an old $1200 computer though.  I won’t be taking back my Mac Pro.  Still, it’d be nice for everyone to know about all the caveats with new equipment before they drop the cash on it.

So, you still want to drive three DVI monitors with your single graphics card 2010 Mac Pro?  Get two Apple Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI Adapters for $99 each.  If you want to stray from Apple branded products, you can try similar adapters from MonoPrice at $67 each (these don’t have USB output though and I haven’t verified that they work).

Now you know.  Good luck!

UPDATE. 18 Sep 2010 – Monoprice was out of their $65 adapters, so I bought two of the $99 Apple Mini DisplayPort to Dual Link DVI adapters.  I’m happy to have three monitors finally working.  Unfortunately, when I use those adapters, the monitors do not properly wake up from sleeping.  The monitor connected directly to the 5870′s DVI output wakes up fine, but the two connected with the adapters show static after waking up.  It takes 2 to 5 power cycles of the monitors to get them working again.  This is apparently a problem with both the 5770 and 5870 Mac Pros: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2566723

I thought Apple products were supposed to “just work.”  Hmmm.