Rob Sandbach is an online web-tech addict. He has a passion for indie game development and founded indieSpring, a group of young, like minded creatives who want to create engaging and innovative games.
September 25th, 2009
It’s been an enormously long time since I posted up a decent blog. After about 5 years of various ideas, projects, games, websites, domains, plans, people and thoughts I finally shipped my first ever game (barring an old mod for unreal tournament).
It’s Fluttr! I decided about 3 weeks ago to just -do something-. I browsed iStock and came across an image which inspired a quick and simple game idea. I prototyped it in about 2 hours in TGB. I then played with the concept, got some help from a couple of work mates to help make it look good.
The game is quick, it’s simple and (hopefully) it’s fun. It seems like kids really enjoy it which is particularly satisfying. As soon as I made the game I figured we had to port it to the iPhone - one purchase of iTGB and 2 days later and the deed was done. It’s now waiting for approval from Apple. Suprisingly, the longest part of the whole process has been the last 10%. Resizing all the art assets, trimming the code files, finding platform installers, testing upgrades, updating the website to handle file downloads and getting all the bugs ironed and tested.
I’m glad to say most of that’s done. Although this release is a little bit “beta”, I’m mostly just glad to have been through the process from start to finish and get it shipped. It should be in the app store in a couple of weeks (fingers crossed!).
Thanks for reading and if you want to grab yourself a copy then head over here.
I can’t wait to hear your ideas, thoughts, feedback and criticisms!
Using Amazon Storage to Backup
July 21st, 2009
Amazon’s web services are fantastic. Let me start by making that statement, very clear.
I use the Amazon S3 system to do all my off site backups, something which anyone with anything valuable should be doing. For about $3 a month - yes $3 a MONTH, I have three things backed up automatically and without my intervention:
All My Home Computers
All my Mac’s and PC’s at home automatically upload key folders and synchronise them with an amazon s3 bucket once a week. Primarily these are my images, documents and music. On a different night each week each machine will upload at the byte by byte level all changes within each directory. My brother’s iMac, Dad’s Macbook, my MacBook Pro and development PC all do this quietly, and on their own with no intervention. This is all powered by JungleDisk a product I highly recommend.
My Dedicated Server
All my websites run on a dedicated server, hosted by mediatemple. All in all I host about 12 websites, with about 20-30 databases. None are “mission-critical”, but rebuilding them all from scratch is not an experience I’d like to go through. Using Christina Warren’s superb tutorial all of the web content, all of my SVN repositories, all of my digital assets and all of the databases are automagically backed up locally, and to amazon S3 without me touching anything. Magic.
My Unfuddle Repository
Over at indieSpring we use Unfuddle on a daily basis. It’s a great alternative to Basecamp, works well with the superb Freshbooks, and makes managing our projects and clients really simple. It has built in support for Amazon S3 so all of our data gets backed up daily, along with the SVN repositories we have hosted at Unfuddle.
Having all of this backed up for $3 a month, is simply, a no brainer. We’re also actively looking at building our next multiplayer title on the Amazon cloud platform to provide unparalleled scalability as users join our games. Something we’re very excited about!
If you have any comments or questions please feel free to leave them here, or drop me a line at robsandbach@gmail.com.
Understanding O2’s iPhone 3GS Pricing Policy
June 9th, 2009
I’m quite amazed by the outpouring of hate towards O2, the UK iPhone network provider, following their announcements regarding the new iPhone 3G s. Chiefly that existing customers must remain in their contract or pay a cancellation fee, and that tethering will cost an extra £15 a month. Finally there is anger at the apparant increased handset cost compared to the US. There are claims that o2 is being unfair, treating it’s customers poorly and not appreciating their customers loyalty.
Cancellation Fee
This is an industry standard thing across all maj0r networks (at least in the UK). When I left orange to join o2 I paid £70 in cancellation fees to bail out early. Why? Because I agreed to pay 18 months of 35 pounds in order to offset the cost of my phone. It’s quite a simple concept, and I find it incredible that people expect that, because they own an iPhone, they should be exempt from a contract -they- signed 12 months ago (or less). They believe O2 should suck up the cost. Bizarre.
Tethering Fee
Sure, it would have been nice to have free tethering, but let’s be honest it was wishful thinking. We all know a laptop’s use of data will be considerably higher than an iPhone. Why have we been unable to purchase itunes content over the air? Or download large attachments in mail? Or large applications? Apple has limited the amount of bandwidth we use on our handset since it was first announced; it comes as no suprise therefore that we are expected to pay to be fiven free reign on bandwidth via our laptop. I’m not arguing whether the price is competitive, but it seems to be reasonable given you now have unlimited mobile data on any windows or apple laptop or deskop anywhere in the UK?
Upgrade Prices
This bit I can’t explain - incredible that o2 would just ignore apple’s lead. Interesting that @o2 hasn’t commented on this either…
What are people’s thoughts? Am I missing something important about the cancellation and tethering fee?
chainWorks Alpha1
February 20th, 2009
Well, well, well. A small announcement that chainWorks has hit an Alpha 1 stage. That is to say the game has been rebuilt on TGB 1.7, and integrated nicely with the level editor. The core functionality of the game rules are there. Next steps are enhancing the funcitonality and polishing it a little before really tweaking and playing with the game to squeeze the most amount of fun out of the concept. For those new to GG, or those who didn’t catch my blogs over the last 5 years here’s a video to show you what chainWorks is about:
Obviously all artwork is placeholder for the time being. Hopefully we should be able to get a nice, polished BETA, featuring 4 different protypes, ready for public consumption and feedback to help us decide the best direction to take the final game.
PS If you’re a handy artist then please get in touch. We’re looking for some nice bespoke artwork in an original style!
The Pencil is Mightier than Level Editors
February 17th, 2009
Level Design by Numbers
We decided to take National Crisis level design back to the drawing board and block out some small levels to test some of the game mechanics we’re planning.
Blocking out the levels like this really helped us to visualize (and measure) player routes and crunch points, making sure no one position was too powerful, or easy to defend.
Constructing block level layouts for the level in Torque Constructor was as simple as inputting size and location numbers and the level was quickly prototyped and ready to play! The level played well at the block level, and I’ll post some updated screen shots shortly.
Long live the pencil!
Rolando Review
January 5th, 2009
Introduction
This isn’t really a review, rather it’s a dump of personal opinion. Assuming you’ve watched the above video, you’ll know that Rolando is a 2D platformer recently released for the iPhone . Perhaps “released” is the wrong verb, as this game was clearly designed from concept to deployment to be an iPhone application. The game involves the rescue of “Rolandos”, little balls of joyous fun, which can be manipulated via tilting, touching, poking and stroking them through levels towards an ominious black doorway.
Along the way you become acquainted with various assistants, such as the Royal Spikey Commando’s who act as handy assistants as you try to rescue kidnapped Kings, or trapped comrades. The game requires a little bit of thinking, but mostly just a sense of humour and a spare £5.99.
Pricing & Presentation
The price point, at £5.99, is an interesting one to pick. With the 99p - £1.99 price point being bombarded with some decent game titles, it would take a game which looks top quality to pursuade punters to part with the cash, and that’s perhaps where Rolando shines. It looks fantastic. The art style, attention to detail, quality of presentation and audio design is solid and consistantly high quality which delivers a genuinely premium game experience.
The Gameplay
Ahha! The critics wail, “But surely they’re just masquerading poor gameplay with glitzy polish?”. I’d be inclined to disagree with this ill-informed hypothetical critic. I wouldn’t say it was ground breaking or revolutionary, but the simple fun to be had from manipulating the main protagonists with such familiar actions mimics the joy you first experienced when you unwrapped your shiny new iPhone and spent a week just swiping your finger across the screen, before locking it again and starting over. The game features the swipes, tilts, finger pinches, and panning we’re used to, but puts them in a fun, colourful context in which you don’t feel guilty for touching up your iPhone for 10 minutes.
The level design is confident, with simple tutorial levels introducing the key actions and characters, building into an interesting blend of puzzles and action/skill based gameplay. After passing the game across my friends a common complaint has been that the initial “tutorial” levels are too slow and not challenging, which breaks the flow of the initial pacing. Indeed, perhaps for “experienced” gamers that’s the case, but for your average iPhone owner I think the difficulty ramp is appropriate.
Conclusions
I love Rolando. A professional review would cite it’s criticisms; a (comparatively) high price point, a slightly “overly inspired” art style and gameplay mechanic (Loco Roco?) but I’m no professional, and this isn’t a review.
Rolando justifies a fair price point by delivering a polished and consistently high quality game experience not tailored, but designed for the iPhone platform. As an independent game developer I find it particularly exciting that a non-blockbuster franchise can justify a price point higher than a couple of quid. The future is bright for us! Congratulations to NgMoco for a solid title.
tweetcrowd - A Web App in a Day
December 24th, 2008
Yesterday, bizarrely, I set myself the challenge of developing a fully functional, usable web application in one day.
Context
This time last year I had very little web development experience. I could use Dreamweaver to hack together table based websites from an “Export to HTML” PSD Image. I could create a database and download/install phpBB / wordpress etc. Since then I’ve started working at an established web development agency, and it became apparant that I’d need to catch up a little on my web skills.
The Objective :
- To learn PHP as a scripting language.
- To learn CSS layout and design.
- To learn SQL queries and database structure.
- To learn how to query a REST API.
I wanted to see how easy these languages were to someone with a very basic understanding of their foundations.
Time Extend?
December 15th, 2008
Hello,
Thanks for stopping by! (Although I have no idea how you’ve found this blog already!)
This is going to be my personal blog. I already have several blogs across t’interweb, but all are for various projects I’m involved with. I wanted somewhere to dump out ideas, thoughts and comments on things which aren’t involved directly with a particular project or initiative I’m involved with. Why “Time Extend”? I’m skint and it’s an unused domain I own (^_^).
I’ve a few ideas for content, but for now I’m going to focus on getting the site up and running, linked with various online services etc.
Rob
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